Something Entirely New
by FireBurnsBrighter
Summary: The silence, the fall, the heartbreak, the comfort that turned into embraces and eventually soft kisses.


**A/N; I don't ship Sherlolly/Mollock, I just decided to do this to get a feel of all of the ships. It turned into this, and I hope you don't mind. Plus, my friend will like it (hopefully), and shippers will gain another Sherlolly fanfiction, however badly written. Yay everywhere (kind of). Un-beta'd, and not Britpicked because I am as British as Irn Bru and rain**.

* * *

Sherlock's mind works in strange ways, particularly when processing unwanted and/or unknown emotions. In this instance, he had felt attraction, unbeknownst to him, as he had apparently blacklisted that at a young age, not wanting to dabble in such sentimental, trivial matters, nor wanting to venture into the murky depths of a thing he had no experience or sufficient information in.

He had an inkling, when John had first came into his life, cracking his hard exterior, what it was like to care for another, and Sherlock considered that the catalyst to his realisation that he was in love-yes, indeed, _love-_with one Miss Molly Hooper, and apparently had been for some time now.

His eyes, which he himself praised and depended upon to show him the bigger picture, the truth, the fine details, the things that no-one else saw, had failed him. It seemed that he was blind to his own love, as blind towards it as Anderson was to the idea of walking straight.

And despite everything, Molly (beautiful, kind, brave Molly Hooper, who had never quite gotten over him), had taken him in when he was broken and cold. When he had let his best friend- his only friend- believe the lies, Molly had taken him in, and those feelings he had so long suppressed began to rise again, and he had understood. He had understood then that he loved Molly Hooper, and, by some sure miracle- despite the fact that Sherlock did not believe- she loved him too.

* * *

It started slow. Usually Sherlock despised _slow, _yet, for some reason (one at he would later look back on with Molly in his arms and laugh at. How could have been so deaf?), he found himself able to settle for waiting. He did not know, then, what he was waiting for- what he wanted. But it was worth it, he would say now. Molly Hooper would always be worth it.

* * *

That night after he had watched John speak to his empty grave, he had walked through the streets of London as it rained. It rained so hard that he was soaked to the bone. At some point when he was walking he had started crying, only able to tell when he tasted the salt of his tears mixed in with the falling rainwater. Nobody noticed- rain is good for things like that.

How, Sherlock thought, could people continue to exist, continue to walk and live, continue to be alive? How could the planet- which moved around the Sun- continue to spin on it's axis when his own world was at a standstill?

He walked and walked until the busy late night workers turned into busy workers with morning shifts, until the moon fell again and the Sun stained the sky. Until he ached and shivered.

He found himself outside the flat of Molly Hooper. She welcomed him in, took his soaked jacket, gave him a blanket, a cup of tea. He took her hospice, eyes dull and unseeing. She left for work, Sherlock fell asleep, and when he woke up she was back, sitting with a mug of her own in the armchair across from him.

They sat in silence, something Sherlock didn't like to do with anyone other than John, but he didn't analyse the thought. All that was going through his head were thoughts of John and gravestones and being alive and being dead and John and John and _John. _

At some point he must have begun weeping again because suddenly Molly was hugging him, rocking his frail, cold body in the cradle of her thin arms, telling him it was going to be okay and wiping the tears from his face with her thumb.

They sit like this for ten more minutes before Sherlock composes himself- or goes through the actions of trying to compose himself- and thanks her before going to take a shower.

The warm water runs down his body, heating his chilled skin, and he thinks of Molly.

Molly, who comforted him- something he would never accept from anyone other than John (not that he had ever been in that state in front of John, as it seemed he was the only one with the ability to make Sherlock that broken, and as long as he was there, Sherlock would survive). But Molly... he had never really thought about the idea of Molly. He had dismissed her and any emotions involving her as foolhardy, and had got on with his life.

She had been in love with him, admired him- and Sherlock had known this. She had shown him kindness, helped him in his time of need, during his desperation to save everyone he cared about, and the grief that was a side effect of saving them.

And she was comforting him through it. Molly was always there, in the background, a silent helper.

* * *

Sherlock stayed with Molly while he tracked down every single member of Moriarty's web, got rid of them, took himself one step closer to being able to go back to his old life. John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, even Mycroft. Molly.

* * *

Things progressed between them slowly, like a butterfly unfurling it's wings for the first time and taking flight.

Sherlock grieves, and Molly comforts him with tea and gentle words and embraces.

One day, when the pain of loss is not so bad, he looks at Molly while she cares for him, and he _sees. _

He sees all of these things that he had missed, had forgotten, had avoided.

He sees Molly as she is, and he realises he loves her.

He kisses her then, softly. And hesitantly, as if unsure, she begins to kiss him back.

It is the first of what would come to be many kisses, sometimes chaste before rushing out of the door, sometimes more heated.

When they finally fall into bed together, they whisper their love and their secrets between stolen kisses and joint breaths.

After, they lay together in silence broken only by breathing and the wind murmuring outside of the window. Sherlock thinks about the three years he has been away, how he can finally go back to John, to his old life, only this time with Molly by his side, too.

He wonders how John will react, when Sherlock comes back from the dead with no explanation to give other than 'I had to. I had to save you'. He wonders how long it will take to rebuild their friendship.

He knows that it will not be easy, but he knows that he will not be alone.


End file.
